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Marco Rubio ‘amnesty’ sparks radio static

“I want to hear more,” the nationally syndicated Humphries said after his sit down with Rubio. “I’m not jumping for joy, no. It goes against my basic, core beliefs. For me, I want to see that border closed, secure. Once that border’s secure, I think, then we have the discussions. But I think we’re jumping ahead. “

Lars Larson, who hosts a nationally syndicated talk show with Compass Media Networks, said Rubio’s pitch — emphasizing the bill’s requirements of universal E-Verify, an entry-exit tracking system and the trigger mechanism that within five years there needs to be a 90 percent border-apprehension rate — fell flat with him and his listeners.

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“It is a complex issue involving human beings,” Rubio said on Larson’s show. “All I’m saying is we can never let this happen again. This is not good for our country. But to leave it the way it is now is unacceptable.”

But after his show, Larson said he wasn’t buying it.

“No, he did not convince me,” Larson, who broadcasts from Portland, Oregon, told POLITICO. “No, I don’t think it’s a good piece of legislation.”

Salt Lake City talker Rod Arquette, who broadcasts “The Rod Arquette Show” on KNRS, didn’t score an interview with Rubio on Thursday but said he was impressed the Florida Republican was coming to an event with 50 hosts who are adamantly against what’s in the bill.

“You’ve got to give him credit for coming,” he said. “But I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

And like the right-wing talkers gathered in D.C. this week, Rush Limbaugh also said he isn’t sold on the bill. Rubio called into Limbaugh’s show before he visited the Phoenix Park Hotel and was grilled by the conservative powerhouse on the details of the bill and the thinking behind supporting a bipartisan compromise. Rush said he was worried immigration reform means the “Republican Party is committing suicide” and that it merely equals millions of new Democrats.

The legislation is not about politics, Rubio argued — “If we are doing this for political reasons, we’re going to be disappointed,” he said — but about reforming a broken system.

“If we didn’t have a single illegal immigrant in the United States, we’d still have to do immigration reform,” Rubio said.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Rubio told Limbaugh later. “We’re not going to deport 11 million people. The status quo is amnesty. … I know it’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than what we have now.”

After the interview, Limbaugh praised Rubio as “a force of nature” and a “genuine conservative,” but didn’t have kind words for the legislation itself. And, like the local conservative talkers who Rubio talked with later Thursday afternoon, Limbaugh said he remained unconvinced.

“I’m never going to understand it,” he said. “I’m never going to understand the thinking here.”